Having spent a whole year thinking about where we might go as soon we could (and believe me I veered from one side of the globe to the other on practically a daily basis), in the end I asked Ian to choose. He opted for Australia - picking up the threads of our aborted trip of October 2018 and go to Oz to see his son Toby, Jay and little Edmond (21 months) for our first long haul.
Having got the clearance to travel, in less than a week we had the outline of the trip planned around some really good deals for business class on offer from Qatar Airways. However there was a slight snag; the best deal was Gothenburg to Perth - but Toby and Jay live in Geelong, about 45 miles southwest of Melbourne and practically the opposite side of the continent. Minor details!
I was nervous of rebooking the trip exactly (didn't want to tempt fate) and one year on Ian felt that snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef was no longer one of his "must dos". He then had the genius idea to get the Indian Pacific train from Perth to Adelaide and then drive to Geelong. The train would be our “luxury”, once in a lifetime, bit of the trip and replace the GBR cruise. Only trouble was we couldn't find availability to co-incide with the flights.
A few days later Ian was golfing when I found the flights and the train, both available, with the right dates. There was just one cabin left on the train so I thought it would be a good idea to start the online booking process to save time when Ian got home (we always sit together for booking these things to avoid mistakes). Except he was running late and by the time we tried to book the cabin had gone which was so disappointing. I had a small doubt in my mind that maybe I'd actually messed up the train booking system so I sent an email saying I'd been mid booking when the computer had crashed and didn't know the status of my booking.
We decided to book the flight anyway as it was such a good price and then get an internal flight to Adelaide. Thanks to BA Airmiles, the return trip to Gothenburg cost us the princely sum of £2 and we'll fly there a day early so we don't risk missing the connection.
About 23:30 that night my mobile rang and it was the Indian Pacific booking office - I had indeed inadvertently crashed their system and half booked the very last cabin - yippee!!! The young lady was very helpful and we finished the booking over the telephone and she took the necessary deposit.
I love it when a plan comes together.